I rolled my eyes at her dramatics.
Malum exploded into flames.
“What was that, baby?” Cobra’s voice carried as I hurried out of the room.
I trailed the men down the hall.
With every step away from my best friend, emptiness flooded through me.
Scorpius scoffed, “Did you enjoy your dalliance with a mated woman? You’re such a whore.”
That word followed me.
I was reclaiming it. In a coquette, vintage sunsets, sparkly fae wine, soft music kind of way.
“Obviously,” I drawled. “Also, I’m flipping you off right now.” I didn’t bother to raise my fingers. It was too much work. “Now I’m sobbing violently,” I said sarcastically.
The blind king scowled.
I snickered at my little prank.
Malum ranted about how I’d never get to visit Sadie again, and Orion tried to touch my arm gently.
I pulled away from him, shoved my pipe between my lips, and fingered my braids. The warmth in Sadie’s room had been an escape from reality. Everything had been richer, and even the air had seemed warmer.
Now I shivered from a phantom chill.
Lightning streaked down the walls, but I didn’t blink.
The world was dipped in gray.
I had no memory of getting back to the room, falling asleep, and waking up the next morning with a stomachache. Almost no recollection of Orion tracing black war paint across my cheekbones. I didn’t recall pulling on the all-white spandex outfits that were delivered to our room.
I barely remembered choking down a plate of eggs for breakfast and drinking three cups of coffee in the silent hall.
I hardly recalled stumbling back to the room to wait for our instructions.
I barely noticed that Lothaire entered the room an hour later. He said a bunch of shit, and I didn’t listen.
“The gods have selected Arabella, Corvus, and Orion to fight in this first round for the academy legion,” Lothaire’s voice penetrated the fog.
Those words I heard.
My stomach plummeted, and adrenaline exploded through my neurons.
The world snapped back into horrible focus.
I missed the haze.
Chapter 15
Corvus Malum
FREE-FALLING
The Legionnaire Games: Day 23, hour 9
I pushed Orion behind me protectively as Lothaire led us into the center of the field.
Arabella walked a few feet away with a blank expression on her face.
The bags under her eyes were black. They blended with the war paint Orion had put under all our eyes.
She looked awful, and she had cherry-colored marks along the side of her neck. It hadn’t escaped my notice last night that both her and Orion’s lips were swollen. He’d marked her like she was his to claim.
I’d deal with my Revered later.
For now, we had to survive the first competition.
I scanned the lawn and cataloged our competition. Fourteen people had been chosen by the gods to fight: two male devils from the House of Dar; two female assassins; two shifters, Sadie and the man called Jax; three male leviathans; and three angels, the man with heterochromia and two women.
There was a thick dark cloud cover, and the sea churned aggressively. The wind howled as it battered against us.
Conditions were rough.
The towering posts along the field’s perimeter cast looming shadows across the lawn. They jutted high into the scarlet sky, and the ends of the posts disappeared in the black clouds.
I flexed with anticipation.
A female student screamed, “Go kings! The royals love you!” There was a chorus of shouts and whistles of agreement, but the cheers were swallowed by the wind.
Arabella didn’t look at the crowd. She kept her eyes on the rough sea.
The entire academy was packed into the small bleachers. Competitors who hadn’t been chosen to compete sat in the first row. Behind them, the purple-clad royal students were crammed together on the left side of the bleachers and there was a foot wide space separating them from the green-clothed commoner students who sat on the right side.
Those who weren’t cheering for the competitors had their heads tipped backward, and they gawked at the platform floating hundreds of feet above them in the air.
The eclipse loomed behind the platform, and I squinted.
Two people sat on the floating structure: Lyla the witch and the angel Lothaire referred to as Dick.
Relief unfurled in my gut. The rumors that the gods themselves attended the event were false, and representatives came in their stead.
My shoulders relaxed.
I couldn’t face the sun god, not until we found our missing mate. He was waiting for us to complete our soul bond so we could patrol the realms and serve him directly.
His representative had told us in the devil realm that he was getting impatient.
As if to punctuate my thoughts, the two devils from the House of Dar sneered as they walked past.
I didn’t bother to engage with them; kings didn’t bother with peasants.
They were jealous because they were centuries old, yet we’d beaten them as eighteen-year-olds.
There were a million reasons the other mated Devil Houses hated us: we were too young, too inexperienced; we didn’t have control over our powers; Scorpius was blind; I had rage problems; and Orion didn’t speak. The list of our failures was long.
Lothaire stopped walking in the center of the lawn and signaled for the competitors to gather around him.
I cracked my neck back as I rested my hand on Orion’s shoulder. With our mating song gone, I constantly checked to reassure myself he was nearby.
He relaxed into my touch, and some of the flames dancing along my arms extinguished.
“Let’s go, Corvus!” a high-pitched female voice shrieked from the student section, and there was a fresh round of cheers.
I ignored the distractions and focused on my Revered. He glanced back and gave me a faint smile. I squeezed his shoulder and nodded.
We had each other’s backs.
It was going to be okay.
Orion’s gaze flickered a few feet to my right, and it didn’t move back. He stared at Arabella.
She was hunched in on herself, arms wrapped around her middle to protect herself from the stiff wind. The look on her face was vacant.
She appeared softer with her curly blue hair pulled away from her face in braids—more like a fae princess and less like the wild, snarky creature who constantly pushed our buttons.
Although princesses usually didn’t have bloodshot eyes and empty expressions.
She was born of privilege. The fae realm was the largest and most famous planet out of all the realms the High Court ruled over. We’d grown up seeing art depictions of the mad queen and her beautiful daughter.
That same daughter stared at us with sunken cheeks and a defeated posture.
Sun god, she even looked dehydrated.
I made a mental note to force her to drink more water.
Dark-blue eyes glanced over at me and Orion. She raised her brow at my expression, and I wiped the pity off my face.
I glared at her.
She’s pathetic. A mere month of fighting the ungodly had almost broken her. I reminded myself that she was the same brat who hours earlier had cuddled up with Sadie in front of her mates. She was disloyal with no morals.
I wrinkled my nose like I smelled something gross.
She rolled her eyes and looked away.
If she touched my Revered after we were soul bonded, I wouldn’t let such a transgression fly. She’d be dead.